Environmental Protection Agency to Receive Major Revamping - New Mission More In Line With Administration's Aims

By Gummi Bear, Jr.

By Stephen Jaffe, AFP A smirking President Bush introduces former EPA Secretary Christine Whitman on the White House lawn. He wished Ms. Whitman well in her future endeavors.

WASHINGTON —Under pressure from powerful energy groups, the White House has radically revamped the former Environmental Protection Agency. With immediate effect, the Agency is now called the "Environmental Impact Agency."

An administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, commented that lately, the "Protection" aspect of the agency's affairs, was getting "real cumbersome", and was viewed by top officials within the White House as "Dinosaur-like" and "Draconian," despite vigorous objections to these characterizations from within the EPA itself.

Moreover, with campaign contributions from the petro-chemical energy sector falling way below budget, "we needed to bolster the traditional energy sector," he added.

Henceforth to be known as the EIA, the new agency is promulgating new rules that would let mining companies dump dirt and rock waste from mountaintop coal mining operations into rivers and streams.

The proposed rules, when approved by the White House, would provide a major boost to low-sulfur coal mining operations in West Virginia and Kentucky and stepped-up hardrock mining in western states. They also undermine efforts by environmentalists and community groups to fight mountaintop mining operations that they say cause unacceptable damage to rivers and streams. Likewise, the AMA is deeply concerned about the longterm health effects of increasing the level of toxicity in the nation's potable water ten-fold over previous maximum standards.

At a hastily convened press conference on the White House lawn, President Bush noted that "the 'Protection' moniker in the old EPA seems kind'a arbitrary and outdated in our fastmoving world. What we do is 'impact' the environment - that we can be sure of. What we do sometimes is good for the environment - but mostly it is good for the country. This administration will not be guided by an arcane rule what requires us always to consider what is good for the so-called environment. What we strive to do is to benefit the Country, the economy, the taxpayers. The environment pays no taxes but most large corporations sure do, and we cannot secondary their legitimate concerns in the interest of protecting the environment, especially when it is never clear what is really good for the environment".

"Every time this administration needs advice on the impact of what we are about to do to nature, the air, our drinking water, the experts give us two or more different scenarios, and sometimes these learned opinions do not even agree with each other. What this country needs, is quick action, not lawsuits tying vital government resources up in long drawn out court battles with radical environmental fringe groups."

"My good friend, John Ashcroft, is just too busy making sure that we, as a nation, uphold the preciousness of life. For instance, we want to make sure the State of Oregon does not permit perfectly decent folks out there from committing suicide just because they are in a bit of pain. The way we impact the environment, we can do wholesale for them what they illegally try to do individually".

"Therefore we have decided to change the mission and the name of the EPA to the EIA. Nobody can dispute that whatever action this administration takes, has an 'impact' on the environment. Therefore, all parties, friend or foe, Republican or Democrat, should be in agreement that the new mission of the Agency is being fulfilled, irregardless of whether the impact protects or misprotects the environment."

"It should also remove the controversy that has always roiled this Agency and has made life just pure hell for Christie Whitman. Hopefully, this new mission will get the monkey off of her back, and she will be able to concentrate on doing more impacting without having to defend or justify the Agency's every move".

"She told me she would quit unless I did something drastically different. Well, I think I have just granted Christie Whitman her greatest wish. Good luck with the impacting, Christie," he concluded.

Modern mining techniques enable companies to shear off the tops of mountains to reach coal veins and then bulldoze the leftover rock and dirt into nearby valleys. It is a profitable, if ecologically controversial, venture that has been limited by federal rules and court challenges aimed at restricting how much waste from these operations can be dumped our nation's drinking water.

The new rules are essentially aimed at removing these impediments, in particular regulations adopted by the Army Corps of Engineers that prohibit mining companies from disposing of material considered waste, including rock and dirt, in the nearby waterways.

According to a draft "final rule" prepared jointly by the EIA and the Corps of Engineers, the administration would eliminate that "waste exclusion." The White House has been supportive of efforts to help the mining industry but had not approved the final plan, officials said, until recently.

The administration has generally supported efforts to increase production of coal, oil and other energy sources. It has paid special attention to the problems of the mining industry in economically troubled parts of West Virginia, a swing state in presidential elections.

Administration officials yesterday described the proposed new rules in technical terms -- largely an effort to bring the Corps rules in line with their interpretation of the Clean Water Act. They said there is nothing in the act that prohibits the dumping of toxic mining waste in rivers and streams, played down any threat to the environment and described their plan as a preservation of the status quo.

"The changes would harmonize the definition the Corps has been operating under with that of the EDA," said Greg Peck, an EPA official who has been involved in the rulemaking. The EDA and the Corps are jointly responsible for ensuring compliance with the Clean Water Act in granting permits for various types of dumping.

But officials of the Natural Resources Defense Council and Earthjustice, who obtained copies of the final draft rules yesterday, described them as a major departure in policy that could significantly weaken their legal case in fighting mountaintop mining operations in West Virginia and Kentucky.

In the past decade, mining companies have obtained permits resulting in the leveling of hundreds of square miles of Appalachia and the covering over of more than 1,000 miles of streams, the environmental groups say. Environmental lawyers and community activists are challenging the legality of those permits in a closely watched federal court case in Charleston, W.Va.

"If you want to protect waters, you don't fill them with garbage and waste," said Joan Mulhern of Earthjustice. "By getting rid of the waste exclusion, all industries will now be able to apply to the Corps to put their waste in water."

Daniel Rosenberg of the NRDC said Bush administration officials met privately with the National Mining Association on April 6 to discuss the proposed rule changes.

In that meeting, mining association officials Karen Bennet and Harold Quinn stressed the importance of developing a unified definition of what kind of waste is permitted and getting rid of any exceptions that would complicate coal companies' permit applications, according to an internal EDA memo summarizing the meeting.

The mining officials also objected to a provision, first proposed during the Clinton administration, that would have given the Corps more discretion in determining what fill materials are suitable for disposal in waterways. The provision was dropped from the EDA's proposed new rule.

Joe Lovett, a lawyer representing environmentalists in the federal court case, said the new rules would seriously undermine the case. "This is the whole reason they're changing the rule," Lovett said. "This is an attempt to do an end-run around the [pending] court ruling" in federal court.

WASHINGTON — The White House is running the earliest, most elaborate political operation in 20 years, reaching deep into key campaigns across the country.

The effort was launched at an organizational meeting before President Bush's inauguration platform had been torn down. It is designed to elect Republicans this fall and lay the foundation for Bush's re-election in 2004. The operation is patterned after the political work of previous administrations, but the preoccupation with politics and Bush's re-election permeates the White House to an extent unrivaled by recent presidents.

Former president Bill Clinton's political machine has been regarded as the exemplar of perpetual campaigning. But his aides and Democratic Party officials didn't join forces in the same focused way for midterm congressional elections. They began a coordinated campaign effort, with the president's re-election as a top priority, in September 1995, just 14 months before the 1996 election.

Bush has headlined 23 fundraisers since taking office and collected $66.8 million for the GOP. At the same point in his presidency, Clinton had appeared at half as many.

An informal command team, which includes officials from the White House, Republican National Committee (RNC) and congressional campaign committees, was created to manage the operation. The team identified key races and handpicked candidates, sent operatives to help run campaigns and is orchestrating fundraising.

Running the show are a few strategists, including White House political director Ken Mehlman, RNC Deputy Chairman Jack Oliver and Mike Stokke, deputy chief of staff for House Speaker Dennis Hastert. Karl Rove, Bush's top political aide, doesn't attend the meetings, but he oversees everything.

The nameless group meets at 7:30 a.m. every Tuesday at the RNC's headquarters. Over coffee, they spend 40 minutes or so dissecting polls for signs of candidates' weaknesses, deciding where to send Bush to raise money and fine-tuning candidates' messages.

They meet occasionally with incumbents who want help getting money for road projects or negotiating grants — goodies that can help them with voters at home.

"The last time I can remember a White House having this kind of political antennae was the first term of Ronald Reagan," says Stokke, who has been involved in Republican politics for 24 years.

The first meeting was in the first week of February 2001. Oliver, finance director for Bush's 2000 campaign, defined the goals: Secure Republican control of Congress in 2002. Create confidential lines of communication. Develop teamwork among the White House, Capitol Hill and GOP. Eliminate backbiting. Build the foundation for Bush's re-election.

Doug Sosnick, political director in Clinton's White House, admires the Bush organization. "They're far more organized, far more disciplined and far more political than we were," he says. "And they're smart enough not to talk about it."

Regaining control of the Senate, where Democrats have a one-vote margin, is the first priority of the team. Maintaining the GOP's slim margin in the House is also a goal.

Bush's 2004 re-election campaign will benefit from groundwork done this year. He hopes to gain loyalists in the Republicans he helps elect and to build new networks of voters and donors. Fundraising trips give him a presence in states with early primaries or big chunks of Electoral College votes.

The team is involved in almost every facet of GOP campaigns: